Today was seminar, but as soon as tantodori came up, I ran across the room as fast as I could to find Ben Sensei as my aitei. He really knows his knives so I wanted to be with him for this.

When he does sotomawari, his initial block consists of three hits – the real block, the second hit to the wrist with a grab, then the hit to the hand with a grab on the knife-wielding hand.  He also moves deeply off the line of attack.

No one does this at Aikikai, so this is one unique credit to Ben Sensei.